It's no secret that Facebook's current search function is practically useless. In fact, it's generally easier to use Google to search Facebook.

For example, if I'm looking for our newsdurham Facebook page on Facebook, searching "newsdurham" will find it, but "durham news" won't. If I type "durham news Facebook" into Google, the top result is the right one.

Even finding people can be tough if you don't know what city they live in and if they have a common name.

For regular users who want to play with Graph Search, it'll be a while yet, but there's a waiting list they can sign up for to be the among the first to get a crack at it.

You can get a preview by typing Graph Search into your current Facebook search bar.

Facebook prompted me to "Try searching for 'restaurants my friends have been to'". Using my personal account, which includes friends around the world, I clicked and got a Pickering restaurant, several in Toronto and places in Florida, Washington and Italy. Not exactly options for me dining out on a Friday night.

The same search with my work Facebook account, which is predominantly made up of Durham residents, brought up mostly local restaurants.

Now, Facebook has said that search results will vary based on a person's network and who they're connected to. Part of that is also related to privacy because people will be able to set who can search them, just their friends or the public.

Apparently wall posts will eventually be searchable, and I can see that being quite useful. For example, I might want to see who wished me a happy birthday last year or I might want to find a recipe I vaguely remember a friend posted last summer. The current option for finding that kind of information is to slowly scroll down to that point in their timeline, a tedious endeavour if a user posts a lot.

Regardless of how exactly it works, a new search function is bound to be an improvement over what's there today.
Reka Szekely's social media column appears every second Thursday in this space. Contact her on Facebook, Twitter (@rszekely) or e-mail at rszekely@durhamregion.com

Reporter Reka Szekely covers the City of Oshawa for Metroland Media Group’s Durham Region Division. Reka's social media column appears every other week. Contact her on Facebook, Twitter (@rszekely)